Colchester Archaeological Trust

CAT Report 733: summary

Historic building recording at Wickham Hall, Hadham Road, Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire - August 2012
by Chris Lister (with contributions from -)

Date report completed: December 2013
Location: Wickham Hall, Hadham Road, Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire
Map reference(s): TL 4745 2302 (c)
File size: 13,349 kb
Project type: Historic building recording
Significance of the results: -
Keywords: farm buildings, aisled barn, granary, 17th, 19th, 20th, century

Summary. A programme of building recording was carried out by the Colchester Archaeological Trust on a complex of farm buildings at Wickham Hall, Hadham Road, Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire in August 2012, prior to the conversion of the structures to commercial and residential use. The work was commissioned by Foxley Builders. The historic farm buildings are arranged in a loose courtyard plan with the farmhouse to the west. The complex includes two 17th-century aisled barns, a 17th-century outbuilding (all Grade II listed), an additional barn, loose box, granary and wagon lodge dating to the 19th century and a 19th-century brick wall incorporated into a 20th-century horse shed. Wickham Hall dates to at least 1487, with the present Grade II listed farmhouse possibly located on the site of a late medieval hall, set in a landscape that includes evidence of ridge and furrow field systems. The etymology of the place name suggests that Wickham Hall has a pre-Conquest origin. The buildings surveyed at Wickham Hall are excellent surviving examples of post-medieval agricultural structures, which have been maintained (with the exception of structure 4) in good condition and are relatively unaltered from their original design. They form a complex that charts the history of high end farming on the Hertfordshire/Essex border, one that is essentially unspoilt by the intrusion of modern farm buildings.